Natural gas is one of the three major energy sources of the world together with petroleum and coal, and the production and consumption of natural gas has largely increased since the 2000s. Since natural gas generates a smaller amount of greenhouse gases than fossil fuels, natural gas is expected to gradually come to play an important role in world energy supply. However, sulfur compounds such as hydrogen sulfide, mercaptans, and tetrahydrothiophene which are included in natural gas are converted into SOx during the combustion, thereby causing acid rain, and toxifying catalysts used in processes. Accordingly, a variety of solutions have been suggested to remove sulfur compounds.
In military aspects, atomic, biological and chemical(ABC) weapons are formed of halogen compounds including elemental sulfur, and activated carbon particles were put into military protective clothing for chemical, biological, and radiological (CBR) battles so as to protect soldiers. However, when activated carbon is used for military protective clothing, heavy activated carbon may negatively affect the activity of the soldiers, and thus there is a demand for a substitute for activated carbon, which may have the same performance as the activated carbon and improve the mobility of the soldiers.
Further, various substances capturing carbon dioxide, which are prepared by impregnating porous activated carbon with amine-based absorbents, have been developed recently as technologies for coping with climate change. There is a strong demand for further effective porous materials for improvement of such technologies.
The important factor in the removal of sulfur compounds, the separation of carbon dioxide, and the use of porous carrier is to select a suitable adsorbent. Various adsorbents may be applied, but the important factor for the effective use is high adsorption capacity to a target substance and conditions for easy desorption. When adsorption capacity is high, but desorption is difficult, a high adsorbent regeneration cost is required, and thus leading to difficulties and inefficiency in the technological application. Further, when a mixture as a process target has moisture, the performance of an adsorbent may be rapidly decreased due to the moisture. Accordingly, moisture resistance is also regarded as a key indicator in the selection of an adsorbent.
Although the production and consumption of natural gas have increased, petroleum resources are the major energy source which has been leading the world industry, and the influence of the petroleum resources on the world economy and industry is very important. There are increasing concerns about limitation on and maldistribution of petroleum resources. Further, with the increase in national income, the demand for transport fuels, particularly, the demand for light oil products, has continuously increased, but the demand for heavy hydrocarbon products such as bunker fuels or the like has decreased, and the rate of high-sulfur-containing and heavy crude oil in the produced crude oil has increased more than in the past.
Since crude oil reserves are globally decreasing and oil prices continue to rise over time, there are increasing demands for reforming of cheap heavy hydrocarbon fractions such as bitumen or the like which substitutes for crude oil in addition to ultra-high-sulfur-containing heavy oil and oil sand, and technologies for high-value-added heavy hydrocarbon fractions are receiving attentions according to such current trends.
Gasification, delayed coking, residue fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC), hydrocracking or the like has been known as examples of conversion processes. According to the reaction conditions of the above-described conversion processes, a solid by-product having carbon as a main component is generated at a certain ratio from a part of heavy hydrocarbon fractions with the production of light oil. Accordingly, when light oil may be prepared through the above-described processes, and a solid carbon by-product may also be prepared as a carbonaceous material having excellent selectivity, adsorption capacity, and stability through various pre-processes, it is expected that high-added value may be realized.